Malaysia Airlines search: how Bahia Bakari proved miracles do happen

If ever there was a faint glimmer of hope that someone on board MH370 could have survived a possible crash into the ocean, then surely it is boosted by the story of the so-called ‘‘miracle girl’’, Bahia Bakari.

The French schoolgirl was on summer holidays with her mother when the Airbus A310 they were travelling on plummeted into the Indian Ocean near the Cormoros Islands, off the south-east coast of Africa, in June 2009.

Miraculously, the 14-year-old survived the initial impact with the ocean.

Bahia, described as a ‘‘fragile’’ girl by her father, was thrown from the fuselage and into the water.

She could barely swim and was not wearing a life vest but, incredibly, managed to cling to a piece of aircraft wreckage for more than 13 hours, most of it in darkness, as the voices of other survivors around her gradually faded, then became silent.

A search crew eventually found Bahia floating in the ocean, suffering from hypothermia, a fractured collarbone and bruises to her face, elbow and foot.

Advertisement

She was the lone survivor of Yemenia Flight 626, on which all of the other 152 passengers and crew members died, including her mother.

"In the midst of the mourning, there is Bahia. It is a miracle, it is an absolutely extraordinary battle for survival," France’s co-operation minister, Alain Joyandet, said at the time.

Bahia Bakari lies on her bed in hospital after surviving the crash. Photo: AFP

"It’s an enormous message that she sends to the world … almost nothing is impossible."

Families of those on board the missing Malaysia Airlines passenger jet must be clinging to that sense of hope now, as the Australian-led search continues to scour a patch in the southern Indian Ocean where potential plane debris has been identified from satellite imagery.

Cecelia Cichan was just four years old when she survived the crash. Photo: AP

“When people are put in cold water, five degrees or below, they will have rapid loss of heat, lose coordination and in a very short period of time not be able to keep afloat and they will actually drown.”

Dr Gordon said even if people were able to get themselves out of the water and onto pieces of floating equipment, they would still most likely develop hypothermia, as the air and their clothes would be wet at frigid temperatures.

Anxious wait persists

While Australian authorities have identified debris in the Indian Ocean 2500 kilometres south-west of Perth, they can not confirm if the objects are from the missing plane. There is every chance they are unconnected to MH370’s disappearance. Indeed, authorities do not even know if MH370 crashed.

And so, the emotional see-saw for families continues.

David Lawton - whose brother Bob and sister-in-law Cathy, from Brisbane, were on the missing Malaysia Airlines flight - said earlier in the week that he felt empty.

‘‘If they found the wreckage of the plane, then that would be finalised because there’s no hope,’’ he said.

‘‘But while you’ve got hope, you’ve got worries too.’’

As small a chance as it may be, the families’ hopes must be bolstered by previous instances of the seemingly impossibly occurring.

Bahia is a survivor of the deadliest sole-survivor ocean crash, and the second deadliest sole-survivor crash ever, according to the Aviation Safety Network.

The only other sole survivor of a deadlier crash was Cecelia Cichan, who was four years old when she survived a crash in the US that killed 154 other people on board and two people on the ground in August 1987.

The plane was just clearing the runway when it tilted slightly and the left wing clipped a light pole, and the damaged airliner sheared the top off a rental car building.

Ms Cichan became known as the ‘‘miracle child’’ after a firefighter who heard her whimper dug her out of the burning wreckage.

Her parents and six-year-old brother were killed on the doomed Northwest Airlines Flight 255 near Detroit Metropolitan Airport.